New Battlefield 3 Update Finally Adds Stereoscopic 3D Support

Today we should finally get a new patch for the game Battlefield 3 and this patch is apparently going to be what all stereo 3D gamers were expecting to get when thegame was released – official stereoscopic 3D support. This update will include a major client update for the PC version as well as a server-side update for all platforms and it is expected to be available on November 22nd 7:00 AM UTC / November 21st 11:00 PM PST. Below you will find the release notes for the patch:

• Fixed a problem with high speed mouse movement
• Added back some missing Growlers on Kharg Island Conquest Large
• Added back EOR sound for SQDM and TDM
• You should no longer be able to damage a friendly vehicle when sitting in an open position
• Grenades now drop to ground if you get killed while attempting to throw it(note the affect this will have on Hardcore mode!)
• Spawn protection now should work in Conquest. You should no longer spawn on points too close to enemies
• You should no longer spawn too close to enemies in TDM and SQDM
• Combat areas on Kharg Rush tweaked in order to disallow defenders to access the carrier ship after 1st base is taken and being able to enter the AA gun
• Fixed a problem with revived players not suffering suppression
• Fixed a problem with the camera when being revived in COOP
• Added joystick deadzone setting
• Fixed sound for when climbing ladders
• Fixed an issue with some weapon sounds in first person
• Fixed a swim sound loop error
• Increased the damage of Helicopter Miniguns, AA guns, and Jet Cannons against infantry
• Increased the damage of Helicopter Miniguns against jeeps.
• Reduced the physics impact of AA guns and Jet Cannons, players under attack from these weapons should no longer lose control.
• Increased the damage of the 44 Magnum slightly.
• Increased the range and minimum damage of the .357 Round from the MP412 Rex.
• Increased the range of all .45cal and 9mm weapons.
• Slightly increased the range of the P90 and MP7 and PDW-R.
• Slightly increased the range of the 5.56mm PDW-R and decreased the minimum damage at long range.
• Slightly increased the minimum range of the Mk11, SVD, and M39 EMR 7.62mm rifles.
• Decreased the maximum damage and maximum range of the G3 and SCAR-H 7.62mm weapons.
• Reduced the damage from FIM-92 and SA-18 IGLA missiles against aircraft.
• Increased the damage and range of the 40mm BUCK rounds.
• Reduced the damage .50cal weapons do against Helicopters.
• Updated T90 canister shell tweaks to match Abrams canister shells
UI Changes (PC)
• Added round duration and ticket summary at EOR
• Advanced squad polish – should be more intuitive
• Significant changes to the Join Squad functionality (see below)
• Fixed a problem regarding keybindings while playing
• You should now get a better error message when being disconnected via Battlelog

• Ability to share your Profile and Stats pages to Facebook, Google+, and Twitter
• User Profile and Stats pages on Battlelog can now be accessed without being signed in to Battlelog if you know a user’s URL
• Single sign on from Battlelog to Origin. If you’re not logged in to Origin and join a game server, Battlelog will automatically sign you in to Origin in the background and join the game server

— Quick notes on Squad changes in the Nov 22 update

• Removed FIND ME A SQUAD option
• Allow players to join empty Squads alone, thus having 1/4 squad members
• Change order of options to LEAVE SQUAD, INV A FRIEND, SWITCH TEAM
• Disable Privacy flag when 1 man squad
• Reset Privacy flag from Private to Public when squad drops to 1 player
• All occupied Squads will now show up colored blue on the Squad Selection screen
• Players who choose not to join squads will also show up as Blue in the “Not in a Squad” line
• Squads that are currently empty will display as white — if you wish to join an empty Squad, you can choose the first one marked with white text

— A detailed look at Squad refinements

A detailed look at Squad refinements

Today’s PC client patch features numerous tweaks to Squad functionality and is part of our ongoing efforts to make it easier to play with friends and Platoon mates. These changes will also be implemented for consoles when we release the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 updates shortly. Stay tuned for the exact date of the console updates.

First, we need to look at how joining with Squads and Platoons affects the balance of teams. Initially, servers are commanded to equal out each side, so joining with friends can impact that balance while joining with Platoons further hinders this. As a result we have made some adjustments to the in-game Squad management screen.

For PC, you are now able to highlight the various Squads and select which one you wish to join by selecting a Squad and then clicking the Join Squad button. Please note that the Squad Privacy option still allows 2 man Squads which, during 64 player sessions, can lead to players with no squad position –- the number of people with no Squads will be shown at the bottom of the Squad selection list.

After the patch is applied to consoles (in the near future) you will be able to join Squads by cycling through the list and selecting which Squad you wish to join.

The most important thing in this patch is the “Stereo and Rendering Support for Nvidia and AMD Graphics Cards” which should mean the game now officially supports stereo 3D output, rendered natively and just outputting it using AMD and Nvidia’s stereo 3D solutions. If you have already updated and tried the the game in stereo 3D mode after applying the update you are mote then welcome to share your feedback from it…

39 responses so far ↓

Hi, the game looks great in 3D in my opinion. However, the convergence is locked. Anyone knows a workaround?
Performance is now really demanding in 3D:
With my heavily overclocked GTX480 I play in 3D in 1600×900 with Ultra-Setting without MSAA mostly at 40 FPS (locked to provide a smoother feeling), but sometimes down to 30 FPS. Before I was able to play at 1920×1080 with 4xMSAA at about 50 FPS. All in all a performance is reduced about half.

Franco, to my knowledge “not an Origin” version means a pirated version, so don’t expect to find any help on this forum.
Unless I’m mistaken, BF3 is tethered to Origin, regardless if you bought it in store, online or overseas.

Playing with 3d-vision at 720p with a 560ti I’m getting around 20-30fps in multiplayer, haven’t tried single player yet. Depending on the scene of course, sometimes it pretty unacceptably low (below 20). The 3d looks great though, it’s a good implementation. The annoying chat window is now even more annoying in 3D.

You’re right Alex, BF3 is worth buying. I’ve just bought the game so I can play it in 3D. I usually buy all games that I like, but I can’t buy them all. I’ve wasted money with COD series crappy console ports, but not this year, I won’t spend money on MW3, instead I’ll get BF3 which is new game that has PC as the leading platform.

I’m going to play it today. I’ve just finished downloading it through Origin.
Do you guys think BF3 in 3D looks better in 3D than Crysis 2 DX11 + high resolution textures pack???
I know Crysis 2 uses fake 3D, but the game looks so impressive after the DX11 patch, that even the pseudo 3D looked really good.
I’m still waiting to see a game this year tha will beat Crysis 2 DX11, hope BF3 takes the place.

Current setup Intel I7-875k @3.7ghz , 8gb ram, EVGA SLI 580’s Running on the ASUS VG278H, at 1920*1080 (ULTRA – AA), one issue i had was with AA settings when on i had some random AA lines (this should be fixed via a driver update) Other then that i can see where this game needs SLI 580’s or better for 3d vision at 1920*1080. There are miner issues like when you die your gun that drops when they flash the hue is not in 3d so your eyes see the error and its apparent (EA will need to patch this).

I’ll play BF3 in 3D tonight for the 1st time. I just hope my Core i7 2600K @ 4.5ghz + 8Gb ram 1600mhz + SLI GTX 480 can handle this game in 3D 1080p. If I play over 30fps, than I’ll be fine, just can’t go below that. I rather sacrifice performance over quality, I’m crazy about amazing crispy graphics, and I want to see if BF3 really looks superior to Crysis 2 DX11 + high resolution textures.
At least BF3 has real 3D, unlike Crysis 2, but besides that, Crysis 2 is still the best graphics quality game I’ve seen so far.

Ditto, 3D is really good. Do not seem to be able to adjust convergeance, but good 3D and no apparent frame rate loss.

I say Crysis 2 3D is just craptastic. Play it in 2D with dx11 till Crytek does the right thing and releases a true 3D patch. I love their games, but they are lying assclowns and if the studio burned to the ground I would laugh…

I’ve just played BF3 for the 1st time yesterday in 3D, I didn’t want to buy this game till DICE released the 3D patch.
What I can say about my 1st experience playing BF3 is: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW
WTF was that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No words can explain, is just so realistic that I though I was playing a game from the future, it’s AMAZING!!!!!!!
It’s definatelly a 3D Ready game, I haven’t noticed any gliteches or bugs at all, just perfect 3D, totally 3D Ready Title, way to go DICE!!!!!!
COD series now became a joke compared to BF3. Wake up Activision…

Blindside,

Crysis 2 is an amazing game, it’s not just graphics, it’s a very fun game to play, I love the freedoom of what you can do in this game, no game offers so much possibilities. BF3 might have better graphics, but both are awesome, but Crysis 2 gameplay is unbeatable in my opinion.
I agree that Crysis 2 fake 3D is not good, but I think is way better to play this game in 3D than 2D, at least you have sense of depth and no issues at all, perfect 3D. It adds a lot to gameplay, 2D is just flat, so no way, 3D or pseudo 3D will be always better than plain 2D.

in the ini file there is a convergence setting I have not played with it yet.

playing in surround at full 6050 x 1080 bezel corrected for me required a bios hack to overvolt my gtx 480 sli ( gBuffer needs overclocked memory to get textures in out ) I was able to run at an average of 50 fps but 3d just cripples performance for me. I had to lower my texture setting to medium and compromise on every setting plus resolution down to 4033 x 900 to run smoothly.

( waiting for kepler to save me ) till then…
Makes me laugh when I hear the opinion that hardware upgrades are overkill.

I agree. Crysis 2 is a great game. In fact, Far Cry. Crysis a/2 are some of my favorite games ever.

My comments were about 3D only. Many people posting here will post that Crysis 2 is the best 3D they have ever seen! You, however clearly can tell the difference and know the virtual 3D is far inferior. My problem with Crytek is that they had an online campaign bragging about the true stereo 3d capabilities of crysis 2, which included a quote by James Cameron and a direct comparison to Avatar. Clearly this is not the case, though they still claim the new cryengine has native true 3d support… but a future patch is still required to unlock crysis 2 true 3d.

But I also agree that okay v3d is better than 2d…. but we were promised true 3d and I, like many 3d gamers, plunked down full retail money expecting true 3d support.

I am a bit jaded on the 3d topic as I have had my 50″ dlp tv with native cb support running 3d games for over 4 years.

The assumption that nvidia is the beginning and end of 3d is just plain wrong…. even though Activision may not be actively supporting 3D, tridef has had a 3d driver for call of duty games since cod4. It was one of the first games I played in 3d. Just like the 3dvision driver the tridef and iz3d are all 3rd party conversions. All of the COD games are near perfect with tridef. Also tridef always allows convergeance settings to set for pop and effects. Also, if you like the crysis 2 v 3d, you would love the tridef v3d mode. It looks almost as good as true 3d mode on many games.

Most COD games are good to excellent rated for 3d vision, so should run well for you.

I was asking what plasma you are using, b/c if it supports cb you should be able to run the tridef and iz3d drivers. You can try both for 14 days i think before buying. Both allow you to set cb manually in the settings…. can also uses sbs or such, but will be losing resolution…. still a better option than using 1.4 in my experience. Which model Samsung Plasma do you have?

Claydough, even I have said hardware upgrades are overkill to play BF3 ( most will just need a decent video card for up to 1080p ), but that does not really apply if you are running 6050 x 1080 stereo. I don’t think any amount of harware upgrade could be too much for you…

Anyway, sounds awesome, I have not played with a 3 monitor setup yet.

I just installed the latest beta drivers and new patch and BF3 looked great. I will run fraps and see what the FPS hit is at all high settings when enabling 3d at 1080p. I was hoping the “native” 3d support by BF3 engine would not be too bad in fps, but it does not sound promising on your triple setup. I wonder if you are having more of a scaling or sli issue, or are just going to need a future driver from nvidia to help support triple monitor.

I own a Samsung C8000 3D Ready 63″ Plasma 3D Ready TV.
I don’t think Crytek or Nvidia will release a patch that will enable true 3D for Crysis 2. If we would have such patch, it should be released already, not now or next year. Crysis 2 was released in march, and DX11 patch in July, so I think they’re done. They think Crysis 2 would be unplayable for most folks in 3D, so that’s why they decided to stick with the pseudo 3D. I lost my faith about this 3D patch and Cryetk never said anything about a true 3D patch, like they did with DX11 patch.

I’ve tried Tridef before, but I prefer to stick with Nvidia, I still think 3Dvision is far superior to those other 3D options such as Tridef and IZ3D. I can use my Samsung TV to play games in CB using 3dvision 1080p60hz, or even Frame Sequential mode 1080p 30fps per eye.
Read my post in this blog about Batman AC in this very page.

I’ve played Crysis 2 a lot, I would play again if this true 3D patch comes out, otherwise I have my attentions now toward BF3 and Batman AC which I haven’t played yet.

R u you guys blind? BF3 3D sucks. All they did was put it on a deeper plane than the interface. No convergence at all. Heck, even the very far off distant trees, landscape and other objects don’t show different convergence than the GUN really close. You can tell when you increase and decrease depth in the game. Bring depth to ZERO, and slowly increase it with the glasses off. Watch the double image slowly seperate, now, compare your gun to the very far off back ground, like the trees or something that is far off into the distance. The rate of seperation between something close up and far away should be different if this were TRUE NATIVE 3D. DICE/EA just copied the faked 3d look by using a different plane for the game than the HUD. NICE TRY DICE/EA… Try again. Not falling for it.
Why do you think there is no CONVERGENCE? Thats because this isn’t the NATIVE 3d that they claim it is. Its 2d rendered on a deeper plane than the HUD. Lame.

If you want to control the convergence you can use the BF3 Config Utility v1.7 some really wonderful work by Mindweaver Link to the Config Utility is : http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=154145 once installed and you go to the config tab and scroll down you will find the stereo convergence line its set to 1.000000 as standard i had it set at 60.000000 and tweaked my separation with the USB Scroll Wheel it will take some tweaking but once desired convergence is found it will stay like that every time. Enjoy :) i know i did. Also you can turn off Enlighten which is the Sun spots and Sun reflection/glare which when running 3D Vision can be extremely frustrating. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.

I have a rig i7 4.4ghz, Dual GTX 580’s SLI and with the 3D enabled Ive actually had to turn down settings! I can live with just turning the AA off. This is amazing in 3D though, I hope we can mess with the convergence settings to make it even better though

It seems to be that the Enlighten off only works in Campaign Mode as for Convergence it worked for me i mean i had separation maybe up to 6 bars on the scroll wheel with convergence at 60.000000 and the difference was noticeable.

I have been trying Enlighten off in campaign only and it doesn’t work. A few other people in the most recent post about this topic are also not having any luck with convergence. It’s too bad because BF2 in 3d was incredable and I had high hopes for BF3 but I guess not :(

I would like to know why you would reduce the maximum damage of the scar-h?
A 7.62mm NATO is a 7.62mm NATO. It does not matter what it is fired from. You might get slightly higher velocity from a longer barrel.
I would really like to know what the DAMAGE difference is between the scar and the MK11 Mod 0 rifle. It should not be much maybe 20% max.

One other thing I am pissed off about. The other day I was playing Grand Bazare. There was a guy standing behind a brick wall. The only thing exposed was his head. I hit him twice with a 7.62mm NATO and he still managed to stay alive. What is going on with that. Two shots to the head with a 7.62mm and you should not have a head left, let alone be still alive.

hi guys..I ve a downloaded version of bf3..the game works just perfect in 2d without a glitch..but it s not responding for 3d no matter how hard i try..i even downloaded the latest nvidia drivers 290.36 but just gives the same result..i cant switch on 3d button…?pls help..is there any patch downloadable sites to make my 3d work in bf3..?

Hi, I tested the game in 3d mode and I experience some issues. First, with the whql drivers (285.62): the game shows 2 diferent lights for each eye. if i close my left eye i see same darkest objectes. when I go to the beta drivers (290.53) the convergence issue ends, but the light issue became terrible. Anyone have expirience some of this?